2021

Summer 2021 - Fall 2022

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GUEST CURATORS

Theaster Gates is a Chicago-based artist and curator whose practice encompasses sculpture, performance, and land development-based projects. His work contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise – one defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. Drawing on his training in urban planning and preservation, Gates is known for investing in the revitalization of urban spaces. In 2010,  he advanced this aspect of his practice by establishing Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit platform that provides free arts programming and cultural amenities to communities on Chicago’s South Side. 


Gates is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts and at the Harris School of Public Policy, and is Distinguished Visiting Artist and Director of Artist Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College. His work has been widely exhibited in museums, galleries, and biennials nationally and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions at Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago and Gagosian Gallery, New York.

Michelle Grabner is a Wisconsin-based artist, writer, and curator. She co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial and was the Artistic Director for the inaugural 2018 FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. Her practice spans a variety of media including drawing, painting, and sculpture, and finds a creative center in operating across platforms and towards community. Her work has been the subject of several national museum surveys. She is presently represented by James Cohan, New York and Green Gallery, Milwaukee, among others. 



Grabner is the Crown Family Professor of Art and the Senior Chair of the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has taught since 1996. She has also held teaching appointments at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cranbrook Academy of Art; Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts—Bard College; Yale University School of Art; and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine.

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